Dems struggle with Gitmo politics

Republicans are pushing the hot-button issue of what will be done about Guantanamo’s prisoners—so much so that Democrats signaled Thursday that they will likely drop language sought by the Pentagon to authorize the use of war funds to relocate the inmates.

The political stakes were underlined when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made a rare return to his old haunts on the Senate Appropriations Committee Thursday to quiz Defense Secretary Robert Gates on the issue. Guantanamo surfaced as well in a closed-door meeting Thursday of the House Appropriations defense panel, which now expects to recommend next week that the relocation language be stricken from a pending $83.4 billion war funding request for Iraq and Afghanistan.

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In his testimony, Gates acknowledged that the $50 million requested to relocate the prisoners is largely “a plug” until a better judgment can be made by the Justice Department of how many of the estimated 241 detainees can’t be tried or released to another country. Gates’ own “ball park” estimate was that the number would be somewhere between 50 and 100, but he sidestepped questions as to where the military would move them within the United States.

“I fully expect to have 535 pieces of legislation before this is over saying not in my district, not in my state,” Gates testified.

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The politics are ticklish for Democrats since closing Guantanamo has been a long-standing cause on the party left, strongly opposed to the Bush Administration’s anti-terror tactics. In truth, Republican presidential candidate, Arizona Sen. John McCain, also called for closing Guantanamo in November’s elections. But the issue is more identified with President Barack Obama, who within days of taking office, signed an executive order directing that the facility be closed as soon as practicable and no later than one year.

The appropriations dispute now grows directly out of that decision and includes $30 million for Justice to implement the president’s order and review the status of those detainees held at the facility.

No special authorization is required for the Justice request. By comparison, the Pentagon chose to wrap its $50 million share in language giving the department broad authority to use the funds to relocate detainees, carry out military construction projects “not otherwise authorized by law” and transfer money to federal agencies to help dispose of the prison population.

“We’ll leave the money in and drop the language,” said one Republican lawmaker familiar with the deliberations. “It’s not fully done but that’s where we’re going.”

The full House Appropriations Committee is slated to take up the war funding request May 7 and the $83.4 billion package will almost certainly grow in the course of moving through Congress. The administration itself now wants to add $1.5 billion to deal with the pandemic flu threat, and Democrats in the House are pressing for billions more in military and foreign aid funds.